GANGRENE
—is a technical term, which in FARRIERY, as in SURGERY, implies the first stage of MORTIFICATION or PUTREFACTION.
GASCOIN, or GASKIN
,—of a horse, is that part of the hind quarter extending from the stifle (or inferior point of the thigh approaching the belly) to the bend of the hock behind; upon the shape, strength, and uniformity of which, the property, action, and excellence of the horse very much depends. If the GASKINS are wide, and divide below the tail in a curvilinear arch on the inside, with a prominent swell of the muscle on the outside, it is not only indicative of great strength, but adds considerably to the symmetry and value of the horse, when viewed behind. A horse well formed in the gaskins, is seldom badly shaped in the fore quarters; nor are they, in general, horses of inferior action; exclusive of which, they are insured from the very aukward DEFECT of cutting; no small inconvenience to a TRAVELLER with a weary horse upon a long journey.
GATE-NET
.—A GATE-NET is a principal part of the stock in trade of an expert and experienced POACHER; and, in respect to HARES, the most destructive nocturnal instrument that can be brought into use. They, at a certain hour in the dead of night, when hares are sure to be at feed, are fixed to the third bar of the gates of such fields as have green wheat, young clover, or any other where (by daily observation) they are known to use; when being fattened to the ground under the lower bar by means of wooden forked pegs, a lurcher is turned over the gate, who having been trained to the business, and running mute, scours the field in a circuitous direction; when the victims, thus suddenly and unexpectedly alarmed, make immediately for the gate, (by which they entered,) when the dog being close at their heels, at least not far behind them, they have no alternative, but to rush into the net, where becoming entangled, they meet their destruction. In this way three or four brace are taken in a plentiful country at one adventure. The only likely mode of rendering such attempts abortive, is by painting the lower bars of the gate white, which will occasion the hares to shun the gateway, and have recourse to their meuses; if GAME-KEEPERS and SPORTSMEN will but occasionally examine which, to take up the well-intended wires, it will, at any rate, go a great way towards preventing such incredible havoc and wholesale destruction.
GAZEHOUND
;—the name by which the species of DOG we now term GREYHOUND was formerly called. With what propriety an animal of almost every colour should be equally denominated grey, does not appear; any more than at what particular period the change in appellation may have taken place. As the pursuit of the GREYHOUND is entirely by sight, and not by scent, it should seem that GAZEHOUND would be the most proper distinction of the two, and that the present is no more than a perversion from the original.
GELDING
—implies a horse divested of his TESTICLES, by which he is deprived of the act of COPULATION, and of farther PROPAGATION. For particulars of the operation, see Castration.